3 May, 2019

Your Political Rights and Social Media

Posted by Socrates in America, censorship, constitution, constitutional rights, free speech, political persecution, political rights, politics, Socrates, voting at 11:53 am | Permanent Link

A news headline: “Paul Joseph Watson, Alex Jones and others Banned from Facebook and Instagram.”

Consider this: Social media has become so huge, so ubiquitous that, when you make a post on it, that post, seen by millions of people, is in the public domain. It’s a public forum, in other words, even if the forum is not controlled by the government. “The people” posting on it make the forum a public forum. Is there over, let’s say, 50 million people on it? Then it’s a public forum. That makes it public.

If you are banned from social media solely for political reasons (and not just for saying “f***” or for advocating violence), that banning is a violation of your implied right to engage in political activism. Voting is mentioned in the Constitution [1].Therefore, citizens have an implied right to engage in all facets of the political process. One of those facets is political activism (e.g., urging people to vote for Candidate X or to consider supporting Y or Z policy). That’s a very legitimate, very legal use of social media. (Contrast that idea to using social media just for chatting or entertainment — it’s not at all the same thing as using it for political activism; entertainment isn’t a right).

[Article].
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[1] Amendment XV: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State…” (Granted, this is a Reconstruction-era law, but nonetheless, today’s courts must follow it)


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